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The first conclusion that she comes to as she tries to assess the situation is that they are in a big pile of shit.
Her second thought is that this is annoyingly unsurprising: with how well things have been going lately, of course the other shoe was bound to drop. She would have preferred it if no bullets had started dropping alongside said shoe, though.
They have a getaway car ready, hidden outside, within easy enough reach if they can make it out of the building. It looks battered enough that no one would look twice at it, even if they found it, so it’s probably still there.
Solo is slumped next to her, still conscious but muttering to himself about god knows what, which is unsurprising with the amount of drugs currently pumping into his system. He’s half out of it, she’s making sure to keep a solid hold of him so he has no chance of faceplanting on the floor, but he should be able to walk out if led, he was standing well enough before.
Illya is at Solo’s other side, with one bullet wound that she knows of. He says it’s just a graze by his side, but he looks pained just keeping himself upright, it’s only reasonable to worry.
There are too many guards walking around, their chances of walking out without being seen are slim to none, because even assuming that Illya can run at his usual pace there’s still Solo to drag around, they can hardly try for subtle. She could try to return fire to get them some cover while they all go for the car, but there are too many, they’d end up with more holes than they can survive. It’s not doable, not when they can’t run.
What they need is a distraction, but even if she could be sure that Illya can drag Solo away, fire if necessary and not bleed out on the way, how exactly is she going to convince him to let her play bait to a high enough number of guards that her chances of not getting shot at all are infinitesimal?
He's a stubborn asshole, and one that is positioned between her and the only way out.
She could perhaps argue her case, given that she is the most able-bodied out of the two of them and therefore she has a better chance of surviving this suicidal stunt, but then again—the pragmatist in her argues Illya’s case for him, says that she can’t be sure that he would manage to get himself and Solo all the way to the car, that playing hero might cost her both of them rather than just one.
She isn’t sure if she’s more horrified at that mere thought or at herself for trying to weight her partners’ lives against each other.
Illya mutters something under his breath, a quick string of Russian that successfully distracts her: she’s been learning, so her brain immediately latches onto the sound with childish interest and a hunger for challenge, trying to guess the meaning. That stupid moment of weakness is probably what costs her a few precious seconds of reaction time.
Illya pushes himself off the wall with a grimace, gun at hand as he turns to her. “Run,” he says, like it’s an order, and then he’s pushing himself up and running out of the room.
She tries to launch herself after him before she has even fully realized what she’s doing, her fingers grabbing only air as she uselessly attempts to jump over Solo, and she doesn’t yell after him, but it’s a close thing.
She curses under her breath, hearing gunshots and commotion outside as she lets herself fall back down, anger boiling in her stomach.
That stupid asshole, that idiot—
Alright, no, none of that now.
Illya has made the decision for her, and she will properly hate him for it later, once they are all somewhere safe, preferably at home, but right now—right now she has her other partner to keep alive. Illya can fend for himself, and it’s not like he has left her any option but letting him.
Bastard.
“Come on, let’s go,” she tells Solo, tugging at his shirt once she’s reasonably sure it’s safe to come out. “On your feet, come on.”
Fortunately, he obeys without creating any problems, and it seems he can hold his weight well enough, with Gaby sliding his arm over her shoulders and circling his waist to serve as some sort of crutch. They might just get out of there alive. Possibly.
“What about Peril?” Solo asks, as they begin walking out. Or at least, that’s what she makes out of his slurred grumbling. It makes her stomach shrink a little, but she has no time to worry about the asshole right now. One thing at the time.
“He’ll be right behind us,” she says, confidently enough.
He’d better be, or she will kill him with her own two hands.
They do make it to the car, unscathed even: the trouble that they encounter is few and far between, just a couple of men easily shot down, and they are sitting in the car faster than the adrenaline can wear off.
Solo curls up in the backseat, sighing contently even though it’s probably not the most comfortable arrangement he’s ever tried in his life, and Gaby quickly makes her way to the driver’s seat. She stills, a gun in her lap and the keys already in the engine.
The minutes seem to stretch out for so ridiculously long, she’s been staring at the exit so intently that it somehow looks wrong at this point, and Illya is still nowhere to be fucking seen, because of course he isn’t.
Shit.
Alright, she should—she doesn’t like the idea of leaving Solo there alone, he’s pretty much helpless, it’s risky, but she can’t sit there forever either, she has no way to request backup, and maybe if she goes to help it will be quick and they will all be on their way to safety soon enough—
“Hey,” she says, sharply, twisting around so that she can grab Solo and give him a proper shove. It gets her a grunt of acknowledgement and two sleepy eyes turning to her. “I need you to stay awake, okay?” She takes out a second gun, hands it to him. “I need to go get Illya, I’ll be right back, but you have to—”
Of course, that’s when the bastard comes slamming against the door to the backseat, giving her a heart-attack. It’s a miracle that she doesn’t blow his head off.
Illya throws the door open, grunts at Solo to move and slams the car closed before he’s even fully settled.
Gaby starts driving without needing to be told, the relief crashing against her chest hard enough to steal her breath away but her brain still thankfully working well enough, it would seem.
Solo takes a moment to realize the situation, but when he does he lets out a delighted: “Peril!” Gaby smiles a little, Illya hums in acknowledgement. Then, there’s quiet for a moment. “This is blood,” Solo says then, the frown evident in his tone.
Gaby spies them through the mirror, and, well—Illya does kind of look like a horror movie. The relief at seeing him to begin with and the worry and terror still clenching her stomach are not friendly roommates, but she keeps them both quiet, forcibly pulls her eyes back on the road, grips the wheel tighter. At least there is something that she can do now.
“Yes, I know it’s blood,” Illya says, evenly. His speech is decent enough, though he sounds dead tired. He started with at least one wound, how many are they now?
“Are you going to bleed out in the backseat?” she asks, her tone more accusatory than one might think it’s appropriate.
(It’s absolutely appropriate: he’s a bastard and an idiot and Gaby is so going to tear him a new one—)
“Not if you go fast,” comes his answer, firm enough, somehow almost reassuring enough.
She takes some air in, keeps herself from looking back, presses harder against the accelerator.
-
Once she’s done with debriefing, which falls on her shoulders more often than she would like, because even though she’s the least experienced among the three of them she’s also apparently the only one with some shred of common sense, she goes straight to medical.
She’s really longing for a nice bed, and possibly a vacation from both of her partners, but she can hardly ignore the worry nagging her at every breath, and she still has to yell at Illya for pulling that stunt anyway.
The first thing that she sees, walking into the room, is that Illya is awake, staring at the ceiling and muttering something under his breath, likely to keep himself from drifting off. Solo is sleeping the drugs off in the bed next to his.
“If you don’t get some sleep, I will personally sedate you,” she says, as she walks in. It’s just loud and sudden enough to startle Illya, his head snapping in her direction as he moves as if to get up, and she can admit that it wasn’t done entirely by accident. He kind of deserves it.
Still, when he realizes it’s her he breaks into a small, fond smile, and she can’t help the warmth spreading in her chest.
“Waverly sends his best,” she says, pulling up a chair to sit in between their beds, her back on the wall.
Illya hums and utters something that sounds like a ‘thank you’, turning his face towards her. He blinks tiredly at her, still smiling a bit, and it makes her ridiculously chocked up. Every thought she had about letting her anger loose and dragging him into a fight vanishes, and she can only shake her head, letting out a sigh as she says, as stern as she can make it in spite of the smile threatening to show on her face: “Sleep.”
He nods, draws in a few shaky breaths and quickly drifts off.
Gaby stares at him for a few moments, barely daring to breathe as she blindly reaches for his hand. She lightly traces his knuckles with the tip of her finger and finally, with no anger and no debriefing and no mission left to hide behind, she feels the weight of her terror crashing on her, sudden and overwhelming enough that she might just start crying.
Today could have been such a disaster—well, it was, it was a bit of a disaster, but they all came out of it alive, she can lean back on her chair and just listen to the sound of heavy breathing reminding her that it could have been so much worse.
The weight in her stomach still won’t really leave her, because this won’t be the last time that she finds herself in this position, and she always told herself not to get too lost into it, that lovers are fun for a while but commitment never works out for her—Illya mutters something unintelligible, as he often does when he’s so tired that it edges on complete exhaustion, and when she turns to Solo she finds him so composed, which only makes her think of his very bad habit of spreading his limbs like a starfish during the night and god, she really wants to keep them.
She’s so, so screwed.